Worse Than Barbie

This Christmas my younger sister-in-law made me a rather inspired present of the 'Hillary Nutcracker' (pictured), which offers a decent likeness of La Clinton as well as some funny copy on the box ('What'd You Expect -- A Teddy Bear?').

So far, so amusing. Here's the problem: my daughter has now started playing with the toy Hillary, talking to it ('I like your necklace') and - horrors! - kissing it!

I am starting to consider making a necklace of my own, out of garlic, as protection against this clearly evil charm. A stake to the heart would be the next grave step. But I fear it will be to no avail...

RTK review of The Glass Room (Mawer) in today's Financial Times

To be found here. Looking through it as it appears online, I realise that one extra sentence was excised for length from the proofed version that I checked a couple of weeks ago. For my own completist's sake, the sentence in question ran: "Somewhat akin to Swann’s lament over Odette, Viktor rues that the sum of his passion should be expended on ‘a half-educated, part-time tart.’" But then we all feel that at times, don't we?

The Observer's literary map of Britain: Includes me! Part 2

These were the handful of things that struck me on reading Kate Kellaway's very interesting piece:

1. KK describes the general perception of the "Hampstead novel" as “a middle-class morality novel - probably involving adultery and shallow-masquerading-as-deep.” Yes, that was my prejudice too. The thing is, a fair bit of my forthcoming second novel is set in Hampstead. Will I get away with saying it's an in-joke?
2. KK writes, “(A)lthough British novelists now spread their nets more widely, there is still a paucity of state-of-the-nation novelists, writers able to move freely across the map and get an aerial view. Hanif Kureishi puts it like this: "Dickens had a sense of the whole society, from prisoner to home secretary. No writer has that now." I recognise the condition Hanif K is lamenting but I don't agree with the general prognosis. It may be that fewer writers have Dickens' ambitions and/or interests, and that fewer readers want to be bothered with big Dickensian novels, so affecting the supply of same. But any good writer has what Norman Mailer called 'the power to inhabit men's minds', and women's minds too. I don't for one minute rate myself up in the big league writing-wise, but I know that, were I so inclined, I would have the power to get into Jacqui Smith's head, or Karen Matthews', say, without too much fuss.
3. KK asserts that P.D. James has the best policy on the liberties a novelist must take with place, per this prefacing quote from Devices and Desires: "This story is set on an imaginary headland on the north-east coast of Norfolk. Lovers of this remote and fascinating part of East Anglia will place it between Cromer and Great Yarmouth but they must not expect to recognise its topography nor to find Larksoken nuclear power station, Lydsett village or Larksoken Mill. Other names are genuine, but this is merely the novelist's cunning device to add authenticity to fictitious characters and events." Yes, I agree entirely, as KK knows. I remember her enthusiasm when I quoted this very same passage to her on the telephone. And the 'Author's Note' at the front of Crusaders is a homage to the wisdom in these matters of Baroness James of Holland Park.
4. KK writes, “(T)here are hardly any novelists living in NW3 any more - the place is indecently expensive. In that sense, Crouch End – where mum’s lit flourishes and where many novelists now live - might be the place to watch." This, like #1 above, makes me feel uneasy, albeit for a slightly different reason...

Shay Given: too much for the keeper to handle

Given's agent has presented Seamus's feelings to the media in unusually and sharply eloquent fashion: "Shay is very despondent following the very poor performance of the team against Liverpool last weekend. It was the lowest point of his football career and a performance that he would not wish to be repeated. When he signed a new five-year contract in 2006 it was on the basis that the club would challenge for major honours, but on the present evidence all that he can see ahead, with the turmoil on and off the pitch, is a battle for survival."

Given is one of those great players who came to Tyneside and picked up the Geordie disease, God bless him, which is why he's stuck through bad times to put himself in spitting distance of an appearance record without a medal to his name. As Michael Walker of the Independent comments, Given "regards himself as a naturalised Geordie and his children have been born in Newcastle." Well, in this matter I endorse and second the comments of NUFC.com: "Like the departure of Peter Beardsley to Liverpool in 1987, we would struggle to blame Given if he left. It certainly wouldn't be for the money and any anger felt would be aimed at the club, rather than the individual."

"Good evening Mr Waldheim / And Pontiff, how are you?"

"... You have so much in common / in the things you do." Apologies to Lou Reed, but this interesting number from the New York album has been running through my head ever since that old Hitler Youth alumnus Joseph Ratzinger, who now gets to call himself Pope Benedict XVI, made his touching pre-Christmas pronouncement about the human race dying out because of homosexuality and 'gender theory', and the need to preserve 'God's creation' just as zealously as we protect (or talk about protecting) the rainforests.

Clearly, obviously, there are no homosexual people whatsoever in the Roman Catholic Church, closeted or repressed or otherwise. But other gay Christians have gamely engaged with Ratzinger on his own toxic terms, arguing (from the Bible? You tell me...) that people in this world with homosexual inclinations are also part of 'God's creation'. That all seems a bit too polite to me, but whatever: I do believe you should let people go to Hell in their own sweet way, even if they condemn themselves so out of their very own mouths.

To speak of one such, after Ratzinger's verbal excretion BBC News 24 gave airtime to one of his UK apologists, Joanna Bogle - I say 'apologist', but she appeared very proud of herself and her faith and of God's vicar in the Vatican, while also clearly feeling herself the member of a brave and persecuted minority of staunch moralists out there. So the BBC's blonde female newsreader got quite an earful from Bogle, as well as being patronised royally (and inexplicably) over her grasp on the provenance of birds and bees. Hey, let all voices be heard and debated in this world, but people who believe the stars are God's daisy chain should be very careful about patronising anybody. That such belief should also lead one into the conviction that the sole purpose (and attendant worth) of human sexuality is vested entirely in the making of babies is a shocking ignorance too; and an equally great big shame.